1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to the processing of property insurance inspection data and, more particularly, to a system and method for processing such data with a risk assessment score.
2. Brief Description of Related Technology
A property inspection is one of a number of steps taken by an insurer considering whether to provide property insurance coverage to a property owner or policy applicant, i.e., the prospective insured. Property inspection reports, for instance, have long provided valuable information in the underwriting decision-making process.
Property inspections are typically performed by insurance agents or other designated individuals deployed in the field. Details collected about the property (e.g., the dwelling) are recorded on hardcopy or electronic forms designed to capture data related to a number of predetermined property characteristics. For instance, the inspector may utilize a number of checkboxes or placeholders on the form to identify attributes of the dwelling, such as the type of roof and siding.
Insurers have often outsourced the process of obtaining property inspections. For example, a commercially available service provided by the assignee of the present application (under the trademarks WIDE and MAPS) routes orders for property inspections in automated fashion to an appropriate individual (e.g., a local inspector) in the field. An inspection report is then generated in an automated fashion for electronic delivery to the insurer requesting the inspection. The service thus facilitates the front end, data gathering tasks, leaving most, if not all, of the analysis of the inspection data and information for the insurer. That is, such services generally did not directly assist the insurer in the processing of the inspection data and information.
One exception involves a replacement cost calculation that provides an estimated cost of rebuilding any structure in the event of a total loss of property. Replacement cost calculators, or calculation services, utilize one of many industry standard models, and are available from a number of providers, including Marshall & Swift, XactValue, and e2Value. In some cases, the cost estimate is provided to the insurer with the other inspection data and information. The calculation relies on certain data or information collected via the inspection. In any event, the manner in which the input data is provided to the calculator and the manner in which the resulting cost estimate are communicated have been automated by, or within, the above-described property inspection services. For example, the calculated estimate has been displayed as part of an inspection report provided to the insurer. The insurer then compares the estimate with a coverage level of the application or current policy to determine whether an underwriting referral should be generated. In some cases, the comparison has been conducted as part of the above-described property inspection services.
More recently, additional capabilities have been added to the inspection data collection process to assist the insurer in other ways. For example, functionality has been developed to provide convenient access to the inspection information and data. Specifically, the MAPS™ service made available by the assignee of the present application provides data integration capabilities so that insurers can download inspection data on-line and establish computer-to-computer data interfaces. Through such interfaces, an insurer analyzes the inspection data using database tools that support, for example, searching and sorting operations. In some cases, the inspection data has also been organized via a number of categories predetermined by the insurer. More specifically, such organization results in the placement of each inspected property (or the associated inspection report) in a category, or stack, according to criteria set by the insurer. For example, each policy renewal subject to a major condition (e.g., a rotting roof) may be placed in a separate category dedicated to those policy renewals requiring a letter to be sent to the insured to identify the repairs or corrections needed for renewal. While some rules previously set by the insurer have defined one or more categories based on an action to be taken by the insurer, other rules have been set to target a number of specific issues, such as the replacement cost estimate deviating from the policy coverage by more than 5%.
In either case, however, such inspection reporting services provide limited to no cumulative analysis of the inspection data and information. That is, the presence or absence of various issues, a simple binary decision repeated over all of the property characteristics, merely results in a number of flags for each property. The categorization or organization of each property into stacks based on any one of those flags fails to consider the cumulative effect of them all. Such limited analysis therefore leaves a considerable amount of risk assessment analysis to a non-automated, or manual, assessment of the inspection data at the insurer, which may lead to inconsistent or incorrect underwriting referrals or other incorrect insurance coverage determinations. Moreover, as insurers consider a greater number of characteristics in these determinations, the assessment of the cumulative effect of multiple flags, i.e., issues uncovered by the inspection, will be increasingly driven by subjective judgment calls prone to error and inconsistencies.